


Be Right Back

by TheSaddleman



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Humour, No Angst, Non-Explicit, Romance, Suggestiveness, shirtless Twelfth Doctor (you're welcome), whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 09:49:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13028478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSaddleman/pseuds/TheSaddleman
Summary: The Doctor made it clear to Clara not to push the big red button on the TARDIS console. But would she listen? Nooooo... And so that's why the two are sitting by the doors of the ship, desperately trying to cool off.





	Be Right Back

**Author's Note:**

> This little bit of (PG-rated) romantic fluff was inspired by [this piece of fan art](http://thecrimsoncardinal.tumblr.com/post/168579282098/i-refuse-to-comment-on-this-one-just-everything) posted to Tumblr by "The Crimson Cardinal".
> 
> This story is probably about as suggestive as I feel comfortable getting. I would call this probably strong PG.

The Doctor’s house wasn’t really a house at all. It was an infinitely large interdimensional timeship called Time and Relative Dimension in Space. 

In fact, the planet Gallifrey, at its height, had thousands of timeships called Time and Relative Dimension in Space. Which was _really_ a boring name for a timeship. Not even occasionally changing the fourth word to “Dimensions” to break the monotony helped. And it was very confusing, not to mention it was rumoured that the desert wasteland outside the Citadel was once a verdant forest until all the trees were cut down in order to print the paper required to repeat the phrase “Time and Relative Dimension in Space” in the countless copies of the operating manual and millennia worth of official documents.

Which is one reason why the Doctor’s granddaughter, who adopted the Earth name Susan, became something of a hero among the clerical class of Gallifrey when she pointed out something that had been so obvious, it had eluded generations of Time Lords: that Time and Relative Dimension in Space condensed down into a rather nifty acronym, TARDIS.

All of which does little to explain why the Doctor, now in his twelfth official life, was sitting on the threshold of his TARDIS, shirtless and with his bare feet dangling over the edge, the swirl of the Andromeda Galaxy peeking between his toes. Or why a petite, elfin-faced brunette with modestly cut hair, beautiful brown eyes and eyebrows that were every bit as mighty as the Doctor’s, was sitting in her undergarments next to him. Or why the two were trying desperately not to bump into each other.

“It’s your fault,” the Doctor mumbled, trying to focus on one of the galaxy’s spiral arms where he remembered once attending a great concert.

“Was not,” Clara, his companion, grumped back, resting her hand on her chin as she enjoyed the cool breeze of the cosmos that was being allowed in through the TARDIS’ atmospheric bubble.

(Yes, I know, there is no air in space and therefore there cannot be wind. It’s my way of saying that, if there was no atmospheric bubble, Clara’s blood would have instantly boiled on the inside while the outside would have become a human popsicle—with the Doctor taking two minutes longer for that to happen. By letting a bit of the cold in, but not enough to kill her two favourite sentient beings, the TARDIS—who, by the way, was alive—was able to simulate a cool breeze since, at the moment, she wasn’t actually able to fly anywhere where there might actually be a real breeze blowing.)

“Clara, I told you how many times not to push big red buttons, and yet you pushed a big red button.”

Clara shrugged. “It was a big red button. Why stick a big red button in the middle of the console if you didn’t want it to be pushed? Especially since you wrote in black marker on it, ‘Don’t push this button.’ How could I have been expected to not push it?”

The Doctor scowled. “Because that message was meant for _me!_ I can’t resist a big red button, either. I put it there so I wouldn’t push it and activate the environmental override while I was adjusting the heat settings for the ship. And then you, Miss Nosy Parker, have to come along and give it a good old slap and now we’re sitting out here in our pants while the TARDIS resets the temperature and reconstitutes the fluid links so she can fly properly again.” Keep looking at the galaxy, Doctor.

Clara stuck her tongue out at the Doctor monologuing about events that were still fresh in her mind. She looked back into the TARDIS, where the air shimmered with heat. Clara’s outer clothes lay in an untidy heap on the deck, with the Doctor’s shirt, jacket and shoes likewise deposited. Someone looking at them now might have thought they’d missed the good bit of some Netflix potboiler. But the heat had increased so rapidly that it was either strip down or get heatstroke—even the Doctor, who generally didn’t seem to feel the weather, be it forty above or forty below, found himself driven to shed his garments by the heat. Though, to Clara’s disappointment, he drew the line at taking off his trousers.

The TARDIS kindly put a bit of her atmospheric bubble between the two and the heat inside, which she channelled through another orifice and out into space.

“I’m sorry I broke the TARDIS,” Clara said.

The Doctor smiled. “That’s OK.” He looked down at the galaxy.

“You know it’s OK to look at me. You don’t have to be staring at Andromeda all the time,” Clara said. He hadn’t made eye contact with her since they’d come “outside.”

“I assumed you’d want me to keep eyes front like a good soldier.”

“Mine aren’t.” Clara sidled up to the Doctor until she was leaning against him. He looked over and saw her smile slyly.

“Stop it.”

“No.”

The Doctor stared down, grinning in spite of himself. “People might get ideas.” Andromeda sure was beautiful, all those stars...

“What people? Doctor, we’re the only people out here. And I don’t think the TARDIS is likely to tell anyone.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know; you tell me.”

“Clara, this wasn’t even a ‘thing' until that button got pushed. Well, there was that one time that…”

“…we drank what we thought was Venusian coffee and it ended up being a Europan aphrodisiac,” Clara finished. “Yeah, that was an interesting afternoon.”

He nodded. “Yes. Educational. Thought-provoking.”

“It truly broadened our worldview.”

“We got banned from the Ganymede Market for life,” he said.

“We offered to pay for the damages, what more did they want?” Clara said.

“The nerve of some people.” The Doctor started to laugh. 

“No aphrodisiacs this time,” she said.

“No, just an overheated TARDIS.”

Clara cocked an eyebrow.

The Doctor smiled, but continued looking down at the galaxy beyond his toes. “Grow up.”

Clara sighed and continued leaning against the Doctor. Never mind. Before she knew it, though, she felt an arm around her shoulder. 

“I thought you were more interested in Andromeda?” Clara asked, wondering why her voice suddenly sounded a bit deeper than usual.

“I suddenly find my attention drawn to something even more appealing,” he said, looking into her eyes. “I’m funny that way.”

“Well, then,” Clara replied. She pulled him closer.

A jarring buzz indicated that the temperature within the TARDIS had returned to normal. 

Clara and the Doctor looked at each other for a long moment. 

“Be right back,” Clara said, starting to get up.

“Where are you going?”

“Won’t be long. I just have to go press a button.”


End file.
